Thursday, June 30, 2011

A Lithuanian postcrosser who was born and raised in the old town part of Vilnius sent this stunning postcard of a wall on a tea shop in old town. The sender has a view of this wall from her workplace. What a great card!

Lynn Berkowitz sent this announcement card from an intriguing photography show she recently saw in Lambertville, New Jersey. Lynn is a great lover of horses, hence her appreciation for these unusual 'landscapes'.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

English friend Carolyn sent this enchanting card of Conwy, in Wales, with a surprise stamp. She wrote of her trip: "In N. Wales, everywhere you look there's a 13th c. castle, but this is one of the more splendid." The boats and cars and people only add to the scene. Love this card.

This wonderful altered card was sent from Ireland by a Canadian postcrosser. She put tons on stress on the card through punching, sewing and spraying. And the little girl witch she created is just so cool!

This card, which shows longshoremen loading cotton in the Texas port of Galveston, was mailed in 1943 by a naval lieutenant on a four-day leave there, a place he calls "a terribly crowded town." He was waiting to hear from the Navy about a commission and, I suppose, to be mobilized. There is no stamp on the card; instead the word 'free' is written in the space for the stamp.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Another great find on the streets of San Francisco. this is a ad card for Homobile: A Queer Car Service that gets to your destination with style and grace and not a hair out of place. Tomorrow is the Pride Parade and no doubt Homobiles will be in demand for parties all over town. And there's much to celebrate this year - New York congratulations!

A real throwback postcard from the pavement on Folsom Street. Is that the Golden Gate bridge rocking and rolling to steel flowers? Really? Then why is the event across the Bay Bridge, at Oakland Coliseum? Which coincidentally is now called O.co Stadium? I think this is the Love festival, which crowded the San Francisco streets the last few years.

This 'illuminated' postcard is from PostMuse, who wrote in passing about a new mailbox installed by some neighbors. It looks, she says, like a fish lure. Hard to imagine. I wonder what the mail carrier thinks of it!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

A postcard of a little blue mail box from a Russian postcrosser also arrived today! Check out that well-used message board next to it. Probably more notes get exchanged there than the through the mail!

This fabulous altered postcard of the Beatles from a Spanish postcrosser arrived in the mail today. She affixed a leaping statue, which creates a wonderful X across the middle. And added some cut-outs at the top and bottom that survived the mail. Looking closely, the Beatles seem to be adhered to the back folds of an envelope. Quite an interesting idea and something I may try out.

My first postcrossing card from Saudi Arabia. These are men of Riyadh in ceremonial dress. She altered the card by adding a stamp of Queen Elizabeth and the sticker telling them to look more jolly. The writer is an English woman and she has lived there for 18 years! It made me imagine the old colonial times when Europeans went off to live in far off countries.

Two sinister cards from Jacqueline. The first, an ad card for giclee prints commemorating 9/11. Not sure I'd want to hang one of these in my living room but...The second card is a postcard of an insane asylum. It makes me wonder why they decided to make postcards out of a place like this. The bare branches in the back ground look particularly sinister. The image feeds into my childhood fears of orphanages and insane asylums.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

PostMuse sent this cool puzzle card, with the story behind it. There's a big kitchen at her new job, where people get together for lunch and relax by playing games, including making puzzles. A postage puzzle inspired her to bring in card stock, glue, and some used stamps and everyone got involved in making postcards from them and the puzzle. Too cool! I can hardly wait to try it myself.

This beautiful image of Lijiang's old town was sent by a Chinese postcrsser in Beijing. She wrote that the cobbled streets are paved in five colors of stone but I think they look grand in black and white. The city has an ancient and still working water system. Water is sluiced daily to wash off the streets.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Artist Cyrilla Mozenter emailed to say that she got a kick out of the rabbits on the blog and sent along an image of her most recent work, called Arctic Hare. "It's not mail art," she wrote, "but what the hell." Not mail art but it could be.

The St. Petersburg math student used the envelope posted yesterday to send this card of a rabbit. She wrote that it was drawn by an 11-year-old boy named Hasan Bedretdinov, who is a cancer patient. The card, which shows a 'rabbit monument' in St. Petersburg, is part of a project to raise money for his treatment. I was happy to learn there is a rabbit statue in St. Petersburg and I wish Hasan many, many years of drawing.

Another 'Italian ice' fountain but this one is in Grand Circus Park (!) in Detroit, Michigan. The card was sent in 1942 by a man traveling with his wife from Wyandotte, Michigan, to Bremen, Indiana. The message suggests that they were on something of a job search.